


Chrysanthemum Boy

by Asher523



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Short, Short One Shot, Technically Four Swords I Guess, This AU got out of hand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-07 01:39:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18863131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asher523/pseuds/Asher523
Summary: A boy growing up in a dystopian city waits for his end to arrive. He gets a little distracted along the way.





	Chrysanthemum Boy

Sometimes, instead of going home, I like to lie on the dirty cement. I can stay here with my back against the grit, feet pedaling lazily in the air. I like to look up. Nobody ever does, but if I look at it like this, I can feel like the towering buildings are a pit. My stomach does flips, and any moment I know I'll fall. I’d go sailing past the concrete walls and their faded and peeling attempt at being less gray, past the homes, schools, factories piping and pouring their problems down the sky’s throat until it can’t breathe, until I can’t breathe because the atmosphere is thinning. I wish I could imagine the blue. As hard as I try, I can’t get past the clouds. I fly back to the ground, where the street can continue leaving little imprints on my arms.

Is that what dying feels like? Falling into infinity, but never touching blue? If it was, maybe I’d care more than I do now. 

I take the time to mull this over. I hear the shuffling tap of someone going by, and the quickening of their footsteps say they saw me. Many do, but taking a second look? Surely not, and never a word. They probably don't want to be responsible for me if I turn out to be lying here because I’m sick. You’d think a cold is a plague. According to the textbooks, or at least the ones I read, it’s not supposed to be. But when all you’ve got is some flimsy masks that might work against whatever leaves all these dead birds, it may as well be cancer. Hell, it probably is. We don’t know. All I know is that kids in my class don't show up to school one day and they're usually gone forever. Sometimes they come back, pale, weak, with these pitiful wheezes that might be coughs if they could breathe. But they don't last very long after that. The smoke picks them off one by one until all that's left is a sad little frame of a family with face masks that didn't save their parents, sisters, or sons, but they wear them anyway hoping it will spare them as if--

"Hi," a voice cuts straight through my thoughts. My face twists into a habitual grimace, but my eyes flick to the source of the sound. She bends over me to make eye contact. "I’ll paint you," her upside-down face states matter-of-factly.

“Me?” My mouth makes the sound before I can remember I should ignore her.

She rolls her eyes at me and stands up straight. She refuses to say anything until I lean on my hands to look at her. Her overalls are stained with paint, so at least if my mind’s making her up, she’s consistent. It’s a waiting game, but she gives up on trying to play it when she sees I could be there all day. "Yeah, you. You’re pretty and have got lotsa warm colors. You'd look good with chrysanthemums," she huffs, and I don't know what a chrysanthemum is, but I suddenly want to find out. She's already walking away, and I stumble a bit over my own legs as I work to catch up.

She walks like a piece of paper kicked up by the wind. Her steps dance back and forth across the cris-cross pattern of brick like she’s not trying to miss the cracks. That can’t be the reason, though, because she hits every one. I wish I could follow to figure out what she’s doing, but I’m afraid my legs might twist all wrong. Her hair bounces around her head like a puff of smoke, a nice puff of smoke if such a thing exists. Then she does a little turn to walk backwards, a feat causing another pang of jealousy. I can’t find any words to start a conversation. Not like this, not while she’s watching me. Her eyes linger on the oily reddish waves of my hair and stare at me in a way closer to that of my father when he fixes a hole in my shirt than someone making eye contact, and it confuses me more than it should. More than I want it to, so I try to fight back.

For a moment, I match her gaze, but she wins this one, so I focus intently on the tiny remnants of brown grass trying to grow next to the stairs of a shop I don’t care about. Then, as soon as the grass came, I’ve passed it. The blades disappear back into the thick gray fog as the tap-swish of our feet lets the time slip by.

Time does that sometimes. You’re thinking, or at least noticing things, but after a while, you’re not. Then when everything comes back, you get this sinking feeling in your chest like you’ve missed everything.

A click-kerchunk causes my head to snap up and a now-unlocked door is the first thing I see. She nearly hits me with the door when she opens it, but my brain’s not foggy enough that I can’t step out of the way. There’s a brief pause with her tongue prodding the side of her cheek like she’s deciding whether to apologize before she pretends it didn’t happen and kicks off her shoes in the hallway. I take the opportunity to step in and quietly close the door behind me, briefly pondering whether I should also take my shoes off. I have another close call with the stationary door when I’m startled by how quietly she moved to come closer.

“You can take your mask off, you know.” She points at it, voice meek now that the factory noises are muffled by the walls, “We’re inside.”

I tug it out from where it’s tangled in my hair as I look around. Her home doesn’t look much different from mine. Creaky floors made to look like wood, walls painted a muted lavender. It’s small, and a stack of food containers sits on top of a garbage can in the entrance of the kitchen. She doesn’t let me notice much further because she rests her hand on my arm to lead me through one of the doorways.

“Come on, chrysanthemum boy,” she sighs. “We’d better hurry if you wanna get home before dark. You don’t need a tour of the kitchen.”

I don’t tell her that it doesn’t matter. I’ve slept outside before just to avoid hearing my parents’ worry. I know that it gets too dark to find a way out of storms, but I don’t want her to know I wouldn’t care if the acid rain slid straight through my skin. It would sizzle and burn through my flesh until I looked like the dead grass by the stairs, and nobody would ever--

Reality gently washes over me as I feel a wet cloth touch my cheek. My eyes automatically close in a slow blink of surprise, and she takes the opportunity to run the scratchy fabric over my eyelids. It’s nice. I let her continue, feeling the warm water drip off my chin while she works.

“I don’t want dirt in my paint,” she explains as she scrubs at my eyebrow, “It’d ruin the yellow.”

She tosses a towel at my head and I scrub my face to soak up the water off my eyelids. There’s the thump of her feet from somewhere else in the house, but by the time I blink my eyes open, she’s already getting set up. Vibrant colors mix in little blobs in no distinguishable pattern on the cheap plastic plate, which bothers me but seemingly not her. She’s humming contently, so I assume she knows what she’s doing.

“What’s your name?” I ask, so I can add another thing I would hypothetically tell my parents when they ask about my day.

She mumbles something I pretend to catch, and my face goes still when a brush touches just above my eyebrow. For a moment, I’m not sure if I should be closing my eyes to be polite. She doesn’t seem to notice me looking, though, so I examine her expression. Her eyebrows gather together in concentration and her lips push out a little bit as she tries to draw a perfect line. I can see the way her irises bounce slightly when they flick back and forth. Noticing this about someone I only recently met doesn’t feel right, so I automatically try to break the silence.

“What’s a chrysanthemum?” I murmur carefully. I don’t want to move my face too much.

The girl backs up but doesn’t make eye contact. Her teeth worry at her lower lip for a moment before she seems to remember I said something. “It’s a kind of flower. Sorta big, almost like those paper flowers spoiled kids wear a lot. You know those...” She makes a rapid shaky circular motion with her hand by her hair, and I give a jerky nod of understanding. “They have lots and lots of petals, though, so you’d better stop moving before I mess this one up.” 

The silence is uncomfortable, but I don’t want her to stop, so talking’s not worth the risk. Instead, my eyes stay focused on the space between her ear and shoulder. There’s nothing much interesting there, just a shelf on a wall with a book or two, some jars full of buttons, beads, and broken crayons. I make it my mission to count the red things.

43  
44  
45… Did I already count that one?

I start to recount, but the brush comes close to my eyes and I have to close them again. I try not to scrunch my face at the unfamiliar feeling and focus on the rest of me. My legs are crossed, a sharp buzzing indicating my left leg is slowly falling asleep. My arms are crossed, and the scratchy sweater feels warm when they’re pulled close to me like this. I can’t draw my attention back away from my face as I notice I can feel her breath on my cheek. How close is she now? I want to open my eyes to see, but I don’t want to disrupt her. She blows gently, presumably to let it dry faster, but then the smallest breath of a laugh escapes and she stops.

“You’re gorgeous,” she says, and I can’t stop myself from squinting. When I don’t hear a hurried sound of disapproval, I open them just enough to see more than blurry shapes, jumping a bit when I see my own eyes looking back at me. They’re brighter than they’ve ever appeared before, brought out by every line and curve of a dark purple vine spreading across the pale surface of my cheeks. The face in the mirror’s lips part in surprise, and my eyes are drawn to the deep maroon of them. The orange flowers that curl around my cheek and across my jaw look like they belong there. She’s beaming, mouth covered by her hand but it’s in the details of her eyes and cheeks, so I know it’s there.

I am a work of art, and I can almost feel any further identity slipping but the spark of happiness dies as I fumble to catch it again. “What’s the point if it’s going to come off? Will it just die? I can’t—” She effectively interrupts me with a finger pressed to my mouth and a smile.

“You let it. It’s paint. It’s not made to last,” she explains as she puts the mirror down but keeps her finger firmly pressed to keep me silent until she feels she’s reassured me. “Anyways,” she shrugs, “paint flowers don’t have effed-up lungs. Life might be shorter, but I’d say their life’s pretty sweet, right? Living beautiful like that, and they aren’t even able to get hurt.”

She gives a final grin as if she hadn’t just said something belonging in a cheesy old love song while she hops up. Her hand is outstretched to help me up as well, and it’s ice cold when I let her. She gives her work another look, “Now you’d better walk home before it gets dark.” Her grin returns wider than before as she adds, “My mom’s bringing home a tart with dinner, and she’d make me share with you if you stayed. I like you, but you’re not getting my dessert.”

With a little push out the door. I’m left with just enough daylight to find my way. I wear my mask despite the paint, and force myself not to worry about whether the paint smudges against it. She’s clearly not too worried about it, so maybe it’s okay to let little things be messed up every once in a while.

My house looms ahead, and for a moment, I’m afraid. My parents could have been looking for me and they’re usually home around this time. There’s nothing wrong with them, but every time they hug me and smile at me, my throat feels all tight like something’s wrong. I hate it when they worry. I hate it when they try to understand or get me to talk about things I don’t know enough about to help them.  
That’s it. I’m turning back.

I start a U-turn to return to the nook between two buildings so I can watch the sky again, but my feet dig into the grit to prevent me from even turning around. A wave of frustration makes my head hurt and tears sting at my eyes. I want to yell at them, screaming that they’ll ruin the gift I was given, blame them instead of myself for creating them in the first place. They start rolling and don’t stop when I see the colored drops staining the light blue of my sweater.

At that moment, my mind is made without actually thinking and I’m running in the direction of home. My lungs heave, shoes slamming almost painfully against the walkway. The sound scares me, and it’s all a blur until I’m standing in front of the door, tears dry but mind reeling. My heart pounds incessantly even while my breaths stretch out into long, shaky gasps. I want to laugh and write it off as something about how easily I can scare myself in the dark, but a full thought won’t come. All I can think about is comfort from this. I want to be hugged, promised a warm meal while my parents fuss over how I’ve missed my history test. I want to tell them about the sky, about her, about chrysanthemums. I want to be in my room with my peeling wallpaper and put on my radio really quiet so I don’t wake the neighbors.

I think...

I think I want to be home now.

**Author's Note:**

> This won a contest at my college, so I figured it's good enough to post here. Leave a comment if you liked it, or tell me what you didn't!


End file.
